Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley defended significant funding hikes from the city’s RCMP detachment amid growing calls throughout North America for defunding police.
The movement calling for defunding police isn’t new, but the calls have surged in the last couple of weeks as protests have continued over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn. and of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky.
Here in Canada, Edmunston, N.B. police fatally shot Chantel Moore, a member of the Tofino-area Tla-o-qui-aht Nation, during a recent “wellness” check, and Black-Indigenous woman Regis Korchinski-Paquet fell to her death from her Toronto apartment during a recent encounter with police.
Black Lives Matter protests have continued for weeks in the U.S. and Canada, decrying the disproportionate interactions Black and Indigenous people have with police and the disproportionate number of Black and Indigenous people killed or seriously harmed in those interactions. As those protests have continued, the calls have grown for a new look at policing and public safety.
Burnaby RCMP gets a boost
The City of Burnaby’s funding for police has significantly increased in the last few years, from around $60 million in 2018 – former mayor Derek Corrigan’s last budget – to $67 million in 2020.
That increase over just two years amounts to nearly 10%.
“Prior to that, they were pretty short-staffed and were having trouble even getting the staff that they needed,” Hurley said. “So the RCMP has been brought back up to the level they probably should have been at for a while.”
The two-year 10% funding hike follows two other significant spending hikes in the last 10 years. In 2014, funding increased by about 10%, and the police got another 11% boost in 2018.
“To be fair, the public, I’ve never heard them ask for less police in areas like Central Park and the bike patrols,” Hurley said. “People were asking for a lot.”
Police funding was a major issue during the 2018 election, with Hurley and Corrigan both promising to boost policing.
What defunding the police means
Different people have different takes on what defunding the police should look like. One take involves simply reducing funding for the existing policing structure, while another would see the police replaced entirely with various organizations.
Sandy Hudson, a Black activist who has been calling for defunding police for years, has noted policing makes up nearly a quarter of Toronto’s budget.
Here in Burnaby, RCMP has consistently accounted for around 13% of the city’s operating budget since 2011.
“If you compare Vancouver policing levels to Burnaby policing levels, it’s quite a bit different,” Hurley said.
In a recent tweet, Hudson noted the “need to develop an alternative, non-police, front-line service for emergency mental health support.”
Black Lives Matter Vancouver recently listed a set of demands, including that Vancouver redirect police funding – which accounts for 21% of the city’s operating budget – to things like child care, education, mental health, restorative justice and employment programs.
Vancouver’s council recently voted to decrease funding by 1%, but the police board refused. Meanwhile, some U.S. cities have seen significant changes – Minneapolis committed to dismantling its police service in favour of a new organization.
Spare some change?
While he acknowledged the need for police to change with the times, Hurley said it’s not up to the city to change broad implementations, like policing and social services – unlike in the U.S., where he noted many cities do control that funding.
In Canada, Hurley said mental health supports, housing and other services are the responsibility of provincial and federal governments.
Asked about a controversy over a recent Burnaby RCMP video, in which fully geared officers, including two with firearms visible, welcomed children back to school, Hurley said police “have to be very aware of the situation.”
“In some cases, (police) look very militarized, and my preference is to see police not as heavily armed and … building relationships in the community,” Hurley said. “To me, that’s the most effective policing, and I know that’s what our RCMP detachment believes too.”
Hurley said the city does advocate for more funding from the provincial government to go toward more preventative measures like housing, mental health supports and other social services.
“Unfortunately, governments take the position of fixing things after they’ve happened, but it’s much more effective if you can prevent them from happening,” he said. “We’re always pushing the provincial government on those kinds of ideas.”
